Telecom Lead America: Unified communications (UC) solutions provider Polycom is stepping up pressure on Cisco with a number of innovative solutions.
Polycom’s RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite allows customers to add anyone on Skype, Facebook, Google Talk and other business video applications to their video conferences from a browser.
RealPresence CloudAXIS, a software that runs on the RealPresence Platform in private enterprise clouds or public clouds, extends video and content collaboration outside the firewall to B2B and B2C consumers via a browser.
Polycom is targeting the RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite for its partners and service providers to expand from offering Video-as-a-Service (VaaS) to Video Collaboration-as-a-Service (VCaaS) – adding applications such as recording and streaming, web conferencing, and collaboration tools (e.g., digital whiteboards).
According to Wainhouse Research, the video conferencing infrastructure market currently represents a yearly market of approximately $700 million and is dominated by Cisco and Polycom.
“Today Polycom is transforming the industry with a solution that equips our customers to extend enterprise-grade video collaboration to everyone. We’re removing the impediments that have hampered video collaboration from becoming ubiquitous by allowing our customers to easily add anyone with a browser to their video and content collaboration sessions with the highest quality, reliability and security,” said Andy Miller, CEO, Polycom.
Polycom plans to launch RealPresence CloudAXIS Suite to enterprises in Q1 2013.
Today’ second announcement is about Polycom’s expanded portfolio of video collaboration endpoints.
The new Polycom UX delivers best video collaboration experience with more than 20 new user innovations and features, including a completely redesigned UI and HD image quality (up to 1080p60 resolution) and Polycom SmartPairing technology.
“Years of R&D have gone into developing these solutions, which are designed to deliver the best user experience with the highest video and audio performance in the industry, regardless of whether users are in the office, at home, or remote with a mobile device,” said Sudhakar Ramakrishna, president of Products and Services, Polycom.
Polycom also announced enhancements for the Polycom HDX Series 3.1, including upgrades for the Polycom RealPresence Whiteboard, an embedded virtual whiteboard software in a video-conferencing unit with no external PC required.
In yet another announcement made on Monday, Polycom said its mid-market portfolio includes Polycom RealPresence Collaboration Server 800s, Virtual Edition, as well as various new, next-generation RealPresence video endpoints.
Polycom also announced significant enhancements to the Polycom RealPresence Platform that make it an more comprehensive and flexible software infrastructure for delivering video collaboration from private, public, and hybrid clouds.
Polycom also introduced open standards-based Scalable Video Coding (SVC) protocol, delivering 3X the previous capacity for HD multipoint video calls for greater scalability, dramatically lower TCO, superior performance, and backwards- and forwards-compatibility to protect customer investments.
